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May 26, 2009

Ruhlman's Ratio & Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Good Morning! I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend and took a moment to thank the servicemen and women in our armed forces. We had a nice relaxing weekend which consisted of a bit of shopping (for me!) and My Boys got to go fishing with their Dad and Grandpa. Our town had their annual Memorial Day Parade and we went over to watch that before spending the day hanging out and playing in the backyard. Overall, a very nice weekend.

Of course, after not entertaining or cooking much this weekend I was feeling like I needed to make something. So, last night I decided to make Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins using Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking as my guide. I picked this book up because I was very intriqued by the idea that you can use simple ratios to create bread, pasta, quickbreads, sauces and soups. It really does make sense and if you are a math-oriented person this will come very easily to you. I am finding the book very interesting and will be trying to apply his ratios as I get through the book.

Using the method of weighing the ingredients is actually a good one, not only does it ensure that you are using the absolute most correct amount, but it eliminates tons of dirty measuring cups! The only thing I did not do was add the melted butter, and that was due to me forgetting it was in the microwave until after I had put them in the oven. But even without the butter they turned out really delicious! My Oldest and My Husband each had one for breakfast this morning and I got the thumb's up from both of them on this recipe. Seems that the missing butter did not adversely affect this recipe. They are nice and moist and the chocolate chips were pretty well distributed.

I'm going to start sharing links for other similar recipes again, sorry for skipping out on that for awhile but with the craziness of baseball I just wanted to make sure that I got my posts written! So, here are a couple of other breakfast or brunch ideas that you won't want to miss!

Genisis of a Cook is preparing to graduate high school (yes, high school, and she's got an incredible number of fabulous recipes already!), so she decided to make a Classic Coffee Caketo celebrate.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Inspired by: Michale Ruhlman's Ratio

Ingredients

4 oz. white whole wheat flour

4 oz. all-purpose flour

4 oz. sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup mashed bananas (use really ripe ones for the best result - I used about 2 large)

4 oz. milk

2 oz. orange juice

1 teaspoon grated orange rind

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 large eggs

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl (flours through cinnamon). In a separate bowl, combine bananas through eggs and mix until just combined. Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine, but do not overmix.

Pour batter into a muffin tin sprayed with cooking spray or filled with muffin cups. Bake for 30 minutes.